How long ago did London buses go flat rate?

[Ediswan]

I'm pretty certain that both the MBA's and the SMS's had fareboxes in later life. I'm pretty certain the SMS's would have been farebox fitted by the time they transferred to Red Arrow work.

Can somebody please elaborate on what 'farebox' means in this context.

 

[MotCO]

The fareboxes I recall were a perspex covered square tube where the passenger would drop coins in the top of the perspex on to a metal shelf, and periodically, the driver would release a lever so that the shelf dropped and the coins would fall into the metal tube into a 'safe'. Being perspex, the driver could see the coins being used (value and currency!)

 

[busesrusuk]

The fareboxes I recall were a perspex covered square tube where the passenger would drop coins in the top of the perspex on to a metal shelf, and periodically, the driver would release a lever so that the shelf dropped and the coins would fall into the metal tube into a 'safe'. Being perspex, the driver could see the coins being used (value and currency!)

That's right, however the drivers never always knew exactly what had been deposited! I recall school days getting the M1 home on occasion and all us kids would rush onto the bus and deposit a selection of coins into the box - the driver couldn't keep tabs on the numbers of kids pushing past and the amount of money put in. I can't remember what the fare was back then, but I think it must have been either 2p or 5p from memory...

 

[Ediswan]

The fareboxes I recall were a perspex covered square tube where the passenger would drop coins in the top of the perspex on to a metal shelf, and periodically, the driver would release a lever so that the shelf dropped and the coins would fall into the metal tube into a 'safe'. Being perspex, the driver could see the coins being used (value and currency!)

Thanks. I had a vague recollection of that, but nowhere near clear enough to be sure. Rubber mat on the metal shelf ?

 

[Roger1973]

Can somebody please elaborate on what 'farebox' means in this context.

Something akin to this (on Flickr - photos not mine)

Passenger's view / Driver's view

That particular example was a Lincoln bus, where there was ticket issuing involved - London's didn't (as far as I can remember) involve ticket issuing so just had the fare-box, and there must have been a single button for the driver to accept each passenger's fare and drop it in to the secure coin box / vault underneath (the ones with a ticket machine involved generally drop/ped each passenger's coins in to the vault as part of the ticket issue process.)

The advantages being speed of operation (assuming that the passenger didn't have to rummage around a purse or pocket to find a fare like 18p), driver didn't need to handle cash or issue change (I think the drivers of 'farebox' buses in London were paid a lower premium than 'conventional OPO' drivers), so less opportunity for the driver to fiddle by short changing passengers or re-issuing used tickets, and security in that the driver didn't need to carry cash during their meal break or on their way back to garage.

Disadvantage could be that, even with tickets, individual drivers weren't accountable for the cash takings, as multiple drivers would have one bus on any one day, and some operators outside London found that takings increased when they went back to conventional OPO.

Various designs of farebox exist/ed.

 

[GusB]

Can somebody please elaborate on what 'farebox' means in this context.

Others have already explained, but essentially a "farebox" is a mechanism that allows collection of exact fares, and it certainly wasn't confined to London. There have been numerous threads over the years - I'd suggest searching the forum using the term "exact fare" and you'll open Pandora's box!

 

[Ediswan]

Others have already explained, but essentially a "farebox" is a mechanism that allows collection of exact fares

Now I have been reminded of the mechanism, it was seen by passengers as a way to enforce 'no change given'.

 

[Roger1973]

Having initially drawn a blank on the LT Museum photo collection on fareboxes, I've found -

Fare box (more transparent to all concerned) on XA type, route P3, 1970 here

Similar visible on FS type, 1972 (this seems to be one of a series of posed photos) here

and MBS type (another posed shot), 1970 here

Later style of farebox on Red Arrow LS, 1980s here

 

[Ediswan]

and MBS type (another posed shot), 1970 here

That style does look very familiar. Thanks for taking the time to find it.

 

[Enthusiast]

That's possibly a rarity - most I've seen have C/M rather than R. (including the one in my own collection, which is alpha coded and appears to have been used at Peckham on route 12 until fairly late on.)

Is yours a country area machine? One that prints the date not a route number?

No, it's not a Country area model - it has a route number. It is alpha-coded. Unfortunately it's stored out of easy reach at present and I haven't looked at it for some time. I was quite sure it had "R" as a classification but now you mention "C/M" I'm not so sure. I'll try to get it out as take a look.

 

[nw1]

There is also an overall cap of £4.95 per day when travelling by bus only.

So an all-day bus ticket for all of London is just £4.95? When you consider that a day ticket for much smaller cities is only about £1 less, it sounds very good value.

(I'm aware that London's public transport system is very different to just about everywhere else of course, and in my view one that other parts of the UK need to emulate).

 

[Roger1973]

No, it's not a Country area model - it has a route number. It is alpha-coded. Unfortunately it's stored out of easy reach at present and I haven't looked at it for some time. I was quite sure it had "R" as a classification but now you mention "C/M" I'm not so sure. I'll try to get it out as take a look.

I understand that London Country's Gibson machines went back to LT in the early / mid 70s, as by that time LC's OPO drivers were using Almex machines, and after (almost all) the Green Line routes had gone OPO, the Setrights were cascaded to the remaining crew operated bus routes.

Some were used for spares, others did go back in to service - they could sometimes be spotted because the print plate didn't always include the word 'ROUTE' above the route number after they had been converted to print a route number rather than the date. (I have read somewhere that there was an idea of using machines that showed the date for an on-bus 'all day' ticket on the short lived Shop Linker route, but I don't think this ever happened.)

Yours could be a converted country bus machine, and it might not have seemed worth converting it so it could show one obsolete class code rather than another, but that would certainly make yours a rarity.

I'm fairly sure I never got, and have not seen a central bus Gibson ticket (other than pictures of tickets from prototypes), showing 'R' class (very occasionally a conductor would issue tickets showing C/M or EMS through being careless or silly) but that doesn't prove it wasn't possible with some machines.

And as an aside, with any ticket machine, it's worth having a bit of a play with it now and then to stop moving parts getting stuck - I now can't change the route number on my Gibson...